LeivTahorBeraLi wrote on 25 Jan 2010 23:39:
I don't understand how certain gedolim went to university in Berlin, like R'Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R'Yitzchak Hutner. Maybe it's because things are now much worse and that was 80 or 90 years ago and there wasn't such pritzus by the goyim as there is today.
I think that you asked a good question here and gave a good answer. Just look at pictures from that era.
I heard that Rav Shach ztz''l said that when he was learning in Europe, it was possible to walk in the streets.
Also, I don't know how much we can learn for our own behaviours based on what people of that greatness did, unless they offered an explanation. Rabbi Y. B. Soloveichik had a philosophy about secular learning, according to tapes I have heard by his followers. The others you mentioned did not share that philosophy.
In regard to pritzus, are there better places than where you are now? I remember when a private college actually had a rule that female students cannot wear shorts. I do not know what the field is like now, but once upon a time I think that some bochurim went to Catholic universties. Not necessarily for this reason, but just the same they went with the approval of their rabbaim. Of course this also calls for a shailoh, and I am only offering this comment as a thought.
Did you know that there are different orders of infinity, and that they are represented by an aleph with a subscript in standard Math notation?
